“What about that woman? Regina Somers?”

Davonte whistled, still thrusting. “She’s kind of hot, if you like white women.”

“Ugh,” Marianne said. She could not bring herself to do the new move and instead continued scissoring. “Why does everyone keep saying that? What makes her so hot?”

“Do you really want me to tell you?”

“No,” she admitted. “Eric is going on a date with her. I guess you were there for the first sparks. Maybe you can sing at their wedding.”

“I don’t do weddings, Marianne,” Davonte said.

“I always thought we were meant to be. Like, when I first met Eric, he was this earnest guy from North Carolina, and we were around all these bullshitters—excuse me—these privileged writers, and we were the ones who saw through it.”

Davonte went back to crunches. She wasn’t sure if he was paying attention, but continued: “Not that I wanted to marry him or anything, not right away.”

“Right,” Davonte said. He wasn’t crunching anymore, but was hugging his knees to his chest. “That would be the normal, wholesome stuff?”

“Maybe I do want those things,” Marianne said.

Davonte was sitting up again, lacing up his shoes. “Let me ask you this,” he said. “How long do you think you have to decide?”

As if to prove his point, Davonte did not wait for her to answer. The door closed neatly behind him, and Marianne could hear gravel crunching softly as he jogged away, toward the beach.

Marianne got up to follow him, but found that her legs and abdominal muscles were very sore. Next to the dresser, sitting on the floor beside an endless line of fluorescently soled Nike sneakers, she found, as if it were just another mode of transport, a small pipe, a bag of weed, and some rolling papers. On television, the meerkats were still standing at attention, their short arms resting at their sides, and Marianne felt as if they were keeping watch for her as she rolled a joint, somewhat inexpertly, and lit it with a Bic lighter she found in one of his shoes.